Wednesday, February 28, 2007

choo-choo

Yesterday, I took the Illinois bar exam. I won't write much about the actual exam except to say that I'm eternally grateful that it is over, and I hope that it is the last bar exam I ever have to take. I'll find out in about 6 weeks how it went.

The real drama for me was in getting to the exam. I was supposed to take a 7:30 pm flight out of STL on Monday. Unfortunately, the weather in Chicago hadn't been the best for the past couple of days. Sunday, apparently, was just plain awful and almost all of American Airlines' flights into and out of Chicago had been cancelled. So Monday morning, I get to work, not stressing too much at all. I check the American website and find out that the morning flights are running on a delay and that its snowing in Chicago. I begin freaking out just a little. I talk to my coworkers and they convince me that I should leave now (around noon) and go to the airport and try to fly standby on an earlier flight. I get to the airport around 12:30 and get on the standby list for the 2:00 flight. Then that flight is delayed, and delayed again, and delayed again. Finally they start loading the plane at 4ish. By 4:30 the plane had all of its original passengers and they were letting on the standby people. I didn't get on, but then they close the door. I go up there to ask if they will transfer my name to the new standby list for the next flight, and the guy says that they aren't done with this flight yet. They just aren't letting anyone else on the plane because...wait for it...O'HARE IS CLOSED and they don't know when they are going to be able to take this plane out.

At this point, I freak out for real. I feel like I'm going to vomit. I have to get to Chicago, and I'm convinced that if O'Hare is closed (which it later turned out that wasn't true) that there is no way my 7:30 flight is going. So, I do want any logical person would do...I haul my butt down to Amtrak. I speed down I-70 attempting to make what I thought was the 5 pm Amtrak train. I get there with plenty of time to spare as the train is actually a 5:30 train. I get on the train and proceed to call my parents, my brother, one of my coworkers, etc. and describe my past couple of hours and tell them all I am now on the train. Then I do a little studying and attempt to take a nap on my bags.

Sometime after my nap, while I am avoiding the giant BAR/BRI book I brought with me, this guy starts talking to me. He's pretty cute so I talk back. Anyway, we end up having a great conversation. Turns out that he is an actor working in the Lou who moved here after 8 years in LA. He's very interesting and ummm...hot. So, he's supposed to be working on this monologue for his audition in Chicago (the reason for his train trip). Eventually he invites me to come sit by him and lets me listen to the music on his computer. It was pretty cool. He played me his original stuff and then some other random music that I didn't really know. This really helped cause I had accidentally left my iPod at work and had no fun reading material (just the study materials). Anyway, as its getting late he invites me to nap on his shoulder - it was very cute. Cuddling up with a random boy on the train totally made my night and helped me relax after the freak out at the airport. I gave him my number before we got off the train, but I honestly never expected to hear from him again. I was pretty happy to wake up this morning to find a text message from him - telling me that he hoped my test went well. Who knew you could meet someone pretty cool on Amtrak?!

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